Colourless Butterflies

A short silver-lining of war as seen by an imaginative and highly delusional girl.

I don't know how I got here, but I want to stay. I took off my tennis shoes and my socks; feeling the soft, fresh grass underneath my bare feet. I dispose of my jacket, leaving only a tank top on, allowing the sun rays to caress my pale skin. I tied my blond hair into a ponytail, my green eyes glistening under the glorious sun. Everybody was born under this sun, everybody breathe in this air, and yet; everybody was killing each other back in the world I came from.

The meadow I was in was different, quiet, and pleasant. A stream ran nearby this great broad-leaf evergreen tree. I could hear it, I wanted to run and dive into it. Releasing the prejudices and flaws a human being caries at the time of birth. I ran without a path, sang in harmony with the wind. I was never going back to that frivolous, dark-and-white place.

I am not sure for how long I ran, but I plopped tiredly on the ground. It was a clear sky, no cloud was visible. The sun was curiously not in the sky, but the day was bright and warm. I inhaled this fresh air, a great contrast to the iron smell I had back in my world.

I closed my eyes, decidedly living in this place forever, my current paradise. I opened my eyes and I saw a butterfly. I pushed myself up, resting my weight on my elbows. I saw many butterflies; I was now transported to a place with blooms of flowers everywhere.

I smiled at the dancing butterflies. I remembered a magic definition that my best friend had told me about butterflies. He said butterflies had no colour at all, I asked him how come I could see so many colourful butterflies? He answered that butterflies wings had scales that they shined off some fragments of sunlight on them. Their colours changed. I was awestruck by the fact, and mesmerized by it.

"But, where was the sun?" I sat upright on the ground. Eying the sky, looking for the orb, it was nowhere. The butterflies around me turned red colour, crimson red. "This is slightly familiar..." I said in a somewhat intimidated voice.

The butterflies flapped and batted their wings faster, they were closing in around me. Crimson crowded my eyesight. I stood and swung my arms around my head, swatting the butterflies out of my view. I became frantic, I wanted a way out, now this paradise had become crimson. A voice called me...I was drifting toward the voice.

"Wake up, Saryn!" I was shook violently, I came back to my senses. It was a dream. My best friend was anxiously turning his head behind him. He had an M4 strapped to his chest.

"Dustin," I whispered, fear devouring my heart. "What do you have in you...?"

"Something I got from that guy," he pointed toward the dead soldier in the corner of this tattered room.

My eyes grew with agitation and distress. I gasped for air, all around me was filled with the strong and pungent odour of blood, dust, and gun powder. I gripped Dustin's arm for strength, "where are we Dustin?" I screamed at him in desperation. Where was the meadow, the stream, the green and peaceful place?

"What are you talking about?" Dustin asks me concerned. "We are in the middle of a war! C'mon we have to get moving before this town is completely raided." He stood and pulled me with him. Horror filled my eyes, everything in this room was blood-bath, a carnage had occurred. I look outside the windows of the hall as Dustin drag me along in a jog. Buildings destroyed, moans, cries, destruction. This was not the aftermath of World War III, this was witnessing World War III.

"I was dreaming," I said in a constricted voice, letting myself being dragged. "It was paradise, I was safe. And the red butterflies..."

"The only safety we have right now is this weapon," he said flatly. Then he softened his tone. "As to the butterflies..." He slowed his jog, and tilted his head outside a window. Through the smog and fumes I could devise tiny, fluttery creatures. They were butterflies, crimson red butterflies. This time, it was not the light-spectrum that gave them the red colour, it was human blood.

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